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Hi Folks,

Being a theoretical physicist, in some ways a Sheldon, in others a Leonard, I’m definitely the odd-man out here — the only things I have published are papers on quantum mechanics. I do like to write fiction, though, and posted about a dozen stories of various lengths on a so-called “writers association” that I was a member of for about five months and have recently bailed out of. They ranged from a fifty-page portrait of a narcissistic former friend of mine to cat stories, a satire of Donald Trump at Buckingham Palace, a talk-show satire, a rather silly romance, and a few other things.

Basically, I was hugging the shore there, not venturing out into the deep water of complex plots with dozens of characters and sparkling dialogs. I feel it’s now the time to write something more ambitious and am working on a longish misanthropic short-story disguised as science-fiction which has a complex plot, several characters, and an ending that resolves the tension created before the climax. At least that is my hope.

I’ve done a lot of reading and thinking about what makes for a successful story and come to the conclusion that whatever it may be, it is ineluctable, if it exists at all. That was the most valuable thing I learned, but there were others, and I’ll probably devote a lot of my posts to the nuts and bolts of writing, not because I have anything to say, but because I hope to learn along the way.

The idea of starting small and "hugging the shore" is a familiar one, but I kind of did it backwards. I love and admire the ambition you're showing with your big project, and you should definitely never lose that! But equally I've learnt it's important to use smaller works to prove you can make stories work, both to yourself and others, before committing huge amounts of effort to a more ambitious project. All that is to say, keep some smaller works going on while you progress this larger plan, so you've got material to send off to magazines and agents to drive up the changes of getting that bigger project in print some day

I agree with you one-hundred-percent. I’m hoping to graduate from mostly short — less than 1,500 word — pieces to something around ten times that, the length of a typical short story (without abandoning flash). On the writers’ site I was on before I came here, I had the urge to scream your advice at the people posting chapters of novels, people who clearly never worked on any short pieces at all and therefore hadn’t learned the basics of writing. But I also think that at some point every aspiring writer has to realize the very severe limitations that short pieces (let’s say flash or long flash) impose on a writer.

I would rephrase what you put at the bottom of the page as "Every writer should know that only a tiny fraction of the readers they target will be their audience." By the way, what is that dancing critter you inserted?

You know, it's weird. I took my linguistics's degree to unlock the creative flare behind words. Yet twenty years later, six years in editing, four being published, and all I have is...

... schema refreshing v schema reinforcement ability.

Some authors are just born with a way of knowing how to turn the known world upside down, or they'll look at something I see everyday and find such a unique of way capturing it that it makes me stop and appreciate elements that touch my life. Just pure talent!

Welcome! I haven't been here very long and have mostly lurked, except in one particular thread that really got my blood boiling, but I have been reading and absorbing everything I could since I have been here. There is so much information and everyone seems so very helpful.

I don't pretend to write anything as technical as quantum mechanics (flunked chem 4 times before squeaking a C), but went on in the social sciences and wrote scholarly papers and books over the years and thought I was a pretty good writer. But I found out here at AW that fiction is a quantum (if I may use that word) leap from non-fiction, and I have a long way to go. I wish you good luck in your odyssey.

Your absolutely right about writing fiction being a difficult act to pull off; a lot of people can write nice essays but they'd be clueless if they had to write a story. Of course, the problem is that in the former case there are fairly clear-cut rules whereas in the latter there aren't any rules at all. Fiction-wise, at the moment I feel like I'm groping around in a dark room for a light switch that I'm not even sure exists.

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As for writing successful stories... it depends what metric you use. For some it's money, others popularity, or perhaps awards won or nominated for, or the content of reviews. And of course, the matter of "good" stories will always be subjective. That's not to say we shouldn't all do our best.

I was thinking of Leonard of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon's roommate, not Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy. No doubt, though, Nimoy as Mr. Spock was a whole lot more interesting than Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, even though Spock, in his incredible Vulcan literal-mindless, is a lot like Sheldon Cooper (and me, too).

When I referred to criteria for a successful story I was thinking of what it takes for a novice like myself to write something that a reader might recognize as a story, even vaguely. That's about the extent of my ambitions now.

Welcome to AW, Geoff, and good luck with all your ventures. Hey, I belonged to a few of those writers' groups like that. To make matters worse, they only made the meetings when a turtle wasn't crossing their yard - and there must have been a lot of turtles in this town. Sadly, most were retired school teachers (LOL). Although I can't fault them all, at least one kept trying to make my house an historical marker (LOL). Oh, well, maybe after I'm gone (G).

Thanks for the welcome Tom. It sounds like your group consisted of people who sat around a table; the one I was in was on the Web; it had "Pen" in its name. A few weeks ago, I realized I had to get out of that virtual sandbox and into the grownup world. This is the grownup world and it's wonderful to be here!

I was thinking of Leonard of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon's roommate, not Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy. No doubt, though, Nimoy as Mr. Spock was a whole lot more interesting than Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, even though Spock, in his incredible Vulcan literal-mindless, is a lot like Sheldon Cooper (and me, too).

When I referred to criteria for a successful story I was thinking of what it takes for a novice like myself to write something that a reader might recognize as a story, even vaguely. That's about the extent of my ambitions now.

I'd say that depends on your target audience. Six-year olds may be a little less discerning than NYT bestsellers.

Sorry, I just assumed everyone had heard of The Big Bang Theory (I don't watch TV, either, I check Big Bang Theory DVDs out from the library). You might want to give it a look; it's funny in a very unusual way. (Clue: "Big Bang" in the present context does not refer to the creation of the universe at T=0, but to something very, very mundane)

I'm sure six-year olds aren't very discerning, but after reading the rave reviews the NYT gave Ottessa Moshfegh's novel 'Eileen' and then seeing what a disaster it was, I think kids of that age may have more discernment than professional reviewers.

I think your scientific knowledge will undoubtedly give all of your work a distinctive flair! Your project sounds completely fascinating and definitely something I would be interested in reading. Glad to have you here!